Suadiye and Bostancı

20.04.2018

Compared to neighboring coastal areas, Suadiye met the sea belatedly. There was an indentation on the coast between the Caddebostan pier and the Bostancı breakwater. There lay a series of small bays; covered with pines, willows, plane trees and other vegetation reaching down to the sea. The Suadiye coast was very rocky. Bostancı, which came after Suadiye, was luckier. It had four adjacent beaches named Deniz, Teksin, Yumurcak, and Derya. A little further the Çamlık beach in Küçükyalı sat as a beautiful part of the coast; near sea mansions. Afterwards there were three beaches; two public and one private, on the İdealtepe coast. Towards the end of the 1920s, entrepreneur Mustafa Güler bought a tract of land on the Suadiye coast. In 1929, Güler built a modern entertainment complex here; consisting of a beach, a hotel, a restaurant, a night club and a gazino, which was a favorite of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk himself. In time, the beach venue complex changed ownership and was mired in concrete; as was the case with many other such locales on Istanbul’s coasts.

Curated by Zafer ToprakIstanbul’s Seaside Leisure: Nostalgia from Sea Baths to Beaches exhibition can be visited at Pera Museum and İstanbul Research Institute until August 26th!